When and what events did the colonists set foot in Africa?

After the demise of the Western Roman Empire, its overseas provinces and colonies were divided up by the Eastern Roman Empire, the Frankish Empire, the Visigoth Kingdom and other countries. Due to political and military restrictions, and because of the sparse population after the demise of western Rome, these countries have almost no power to conquer overseas colonies.

The Crusade marked the beginning of Europe's interest in areas outside itself. The Crusader countries established in the Eastern Mediterranean are not colonies, but after the fourth Crusader occupied the Byzantine Empire, Venice and Genoa occupied many territories originally belonging to Byzantium and established their own commercial colonies in the Eastern Mediterranean. Most of these colonies were later occupied by the Ottoman Empire.

15th century to17th century: colonial empires of Spain and Portugal.

It is generally believed that the earliest colony occupied by western countries in modern times was Ceuta occupied by Portugal in 14 15. This port originally belonged to Morocco. In order to put out local pirates and control the import of gold and ivory from West Africa through Ceuta, Portugal occupied the port of Ceuta after careful arrangements. Later, in order to establish direct contact with Hei Di, a gold-producing West African country, it went south along the African coast and occupied Madeira Islands, Cape Verde Islands and other islands.

With the development of the Renaissance in Europe, there is a desire for commercial capital and wealth in Europe. At that time, Europe's main trade targets were the East, especially silk, precious stones, spices and other luxury goods from China, India and Nanyang Islands. As the trade with the East was monopolized by Venice and Genoa at that time, western European countries decided to explore their own routes to the East. Portugal and Spain were the first to explore the Eastern Front. 1498 Da Gama arrived in India through the Cape of Good Hope. In order to ensure that the trade with India is not interfered by Mughal Empire, Oman and Indian Ocean countries, Portugal established its first colony in Goa in 15 10, built a fortress, equipped with troops, and protected the safety of Portuguese businessmen. At the same time, it occupied some islands and coastal strongholds along the coast of Africa as a midway supply station for India.

Because the route eastward through the Cape of Good Hope was monopolized by Portugal, Spain had to find a new route eastward. 1492 After Columbus discovered America, Spain conquered and colonized America, wiped out the empire established by Indians in a very short time, and established a vast colony. 1494, after papal arbitration, Portugal also acquired a huge colony in the American continent east of 50 w.

Because the Spanish conquered areas are rich in gold and silver, a large number of precious metals flowed into Europe through Spain, which stimulated the price changes and industrial and commercial development in other parts of Europe. At the same time, due to the introduction of new consumer goods such as coffee, cocoa, tea, tobacco, sugar and potatoes into Europe, the eating habits of Europeans have also changed greatly, which has led to an increase in demand for these consumer goods and prompted Spain and Portugal to develop cash crops in the newly conquered America.

From the end of 16 to the beginning of 17, Britain and France seized the Caribbean islands from the Spanish, and the Netherlands seized the Natal area on the northeast coast of Brazil from Portugal. The slave plantation system initiated by the Portuguese in Madeira and Cape Verde in Africa was introduced into these areas controlled by Britain, France and Holland, and the demand for labor increased sharply. However, due to the brutal slaughter of Indians by colonists (especially the Spanish), the number of Indians dropped sharply from 50 million at the end of 15 to 4 million in 17, and European colonists had to find new sources of labor from Africa.

From 1442, the Portuguese used Berbers as slaves (in Portugal), and the Spanish began to transport African blacks into America from 1502. The demand for slave trade prompted these two countries and Britain, the Netherlands, France, Denmark and other emerging capitalist countries to set up many trading posts on the West African coast to sell slaves, ivory, gold and peppers (then known as "the seeds of heaven", and another name for Ivory Coast (now C? te d 'Ivoire) is the seed coast). However, because the coast of West Africa is inaccessible, and the local landform and climate are not suitable for Europeans to live in, Europe's colonization of Africa in the following centuries was limited to a few coastal strongholds. From the naming of these colonies by European countries-Gold Coast, Ivory Coast and Slave Coast-we can see that the colonies in West Africa are basically resource-predatory colonies.

17th century to18th century: Britain, France and the Netherlands.

/kloc-In the 0/8th century, with the discovery of the new continent, the Atlantic Ocean replaced the Mediterranean Sea and became the only way for commercial traffic, which led to the decline of traditional Italian commercial cities and the Hanseatic League in northern Germany, and the economic rise of Britain, France and the Netherlands oriented by the Atlantic Ocean. At first, Britain tried to open the eastern trade route through Russia, so it set up the Moscow company at 1533. Soon after, it found that Russia had no direct commercial ties with the East, so it turned to the northwest route and tried to go to the East via northern North America. 1588 After Britain defeated the Spanish Armada, it began to colonize North America and established the Hudson's Bay Company and the New England Colony. /kloc-in 0/600, British businessmen established the British East India Company, and then began to expand in India. /kloc-After independence at the end of 0/6, the Netherlands has rapidly developed into the largest maritime and commercial country in the world. 1602, the Dutch East India Company was established and gradually monopolized the trade with China, India, Japan, Ceylon and the spice islands. France, on the other hand, established a new French colony in North America and occupied several islands with strategic significance and rich sugar in the Caribbean.

As Britain planted tobacco and cotton commercially in the North American colonies, France needed to send manpower to sugar cane plantations in Caribbean islands, so the demand for slaves in the two countries was also expanding. 1526, Britain started the slave trade. Soon after, the Netherlands and Denmark, as active trade transit countries, also joined the slave trade activities, trying to share the benefits. Sweden, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Kurland and other countries also engaged in the slave trade during this period, thus occupying some strongholds on the African coast. Because the local economy in West Africa is mainly gathering and hunting, and the grain output is limited, in order to support the grain of slaves on long-distance trips, agricultural areas have been opened around these strongholds, and food crops such as sweet potatoes and yams have been introduced from Europe and America.

From the beginning of the 7th century to the middle of the 8th century, Robert Claivu, the founder of the British East India Company, fought four wars. With its powerful naval power, Britain seized large areas of French territory in India, Canada and east of the Mississippi River overseas, becoming a world-class colonial power, and replaced the Netherlands as a shipping power in several wars with the Netherlands. With the signing of the Paris Treaty with France and Spain in 1763, Britain replaced Spain and became the world's largest colonial power.

During this period, the colonial management of European countries in America was basically the same, that is, they were treated differently from the mainland and sent governors or deputy kings representing the king to the colonies. The economic development of the colony was restrained and supervised, and it was forced to grow a single cash crop needed by the suzerain. The mining industry is highly developed and the development of other industries is stagnant. Even basic consumer goods such as farm tools and clothes cannot be produced. The suzerain country exported colonial products for free or at a low price, which even led to the deflation of the colony and forced it to borrow other countries' currencies (such as Austrian maria theresia silver coins and Spanish eight-character silver dollars commonly used in British colonies). The links between the colonies were also blocked. In 13 states in North America, mail sent from one colony to another must be sent back to London first.

The era of industrial revolution: the shrinking of colonies

After the arrival of the industrial revolution era, the traditional colonial trade of sugar, tobacco and slaves is no longer of great significance. The demand for industrial raw materials such as cotton, wool, fuel, iron, copper, tin and coal in industrial countries has replaced the demand for consumer goods. At the same time, these countries urgently need to open up markets outside their own countries to digest their manufactured goods. Because the European market is saturated, we can only seek development space from America and Asia (before African colonization).

1776 After the independence of the thirteen states in North America, the British colonial cause suffered a great blow, so the focus of colonial management shifted from North America to India, which has more abundant resources and a bigger market. In addition, Britain also occupied Australia, New Zealand, Myanmar, Cape Colony, Hong Kong and other places.

Due to the influence of the concept of natural human rights advocated by the French Revolution and religious, humanitarian and economic reasons, Britain declared the slave trade illegal in 1807, and then the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Denmark and other countries also announced the prohibition of the slave trade. This measure made the strongholds of countries in the coastal areas of Africa shrink rapidly, and both Denmark and the Netherlands sold their commercial stations in the coastal areas of West Africa in the middle of the19th century. At the same time, due to the influence of the Napoleonic Wars, Spanish and Portuguese colonies in America declared their independence one after another, the demand for slaves dropped sharply, and the colonial power of these two countries in Africa also declined rapidly.

In North Africa, the French took advantage of Turkey's decline, and by eliminating pirates in North Africa, they infiltrated into Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisia and other Turkish dependent countries. Algeria, where pirates are most active, has been hit hardest. 18 15, the U.S navy defeated the Algerian navy. 18 19, the British-Dutch joint fleet shelled Algiers, and France also had many conflicts with Algeria.

During the period from 1825 to 1875, except for Britain and France, the activities of European countries to conquer new colonies basically stopped, and instead, they moved to overseas colonies. As far as the British situation is concerned, a sentence by British Prime Minister disraeli in 1852 can be said to be the best summary of Britain's attitude towards colonies in this period: "Colonies are a heavy millstone hanging around our necks". Take Gambia and Gold Coast as two small British colonies, for example, the business tax revenue is far behind the administrative expenses. On several occasions, the British Parliament suggested reducing the size of the colonies or giving them up completely. It was only because the Royal Navy's West African Sub-fleet needed to establish a naval base in the Gulf of Guinea to ban the slave trade that Britain finally retained these two areas.

However, in order to resettle the freed slaves in the Caribbean islands, Britain established the Sierra Leone colony in the form of authorized companies during the colonial contraction, the American Colonial Association opened the Liberian colony at the same time, and France opened the Libreville (now Gabon) colony, all of which were used to resettle the freed slaves.

/kloc-from the end of 0/9 to the beginning of the 20th century: the climax of colonial occupation.

1870 After the Franco-Prussian War ended and Germany was unified, the German geographer Frederick Laczer began to study the expanding market of German industrial products at that time and began to defend Bismarck's imperialist policy with geography. He believes that with the development of the world, space will become more and more important for a country, big countries will gradually expand, and small parliaments will become insignificant. World history needs more and more space. This fact can be clearly seen from the evolution of important commercial countries: Venice is a city; Holland is a delta country; Britain is an island country; America is a continent. Great powers must conform to this absolute and inevitable trend and strive to expand their space through colonization, merger and conquest. Sir Half Makinder, a British imperialist theorist, also put forward a similar theory, pointing out that a country must achieve self-sufficiency if it wants to survive. Controlling the origin of raw materials and making it an export market for products has become a strategic demand of national interests. In the first 75 years of the19th century, western countries occupied an average of 2 1000 square kilometers of colonies every year, and in the last 25 years, they occupied an average of 620,000 square kilometers of colonies every year.

From the end of15th century to the middle of19th century, colonial countries only occupied 3180,000 square kilometers of land in Africa, and in the last quarter of19th century, Europe became more interested in Africa, occupying 25.69 million square kilometers of land in Africa. Due to the rapid industrialization and population increase in Europe, the demand for vegetable oil, plant fiber, rubber and some mineral resources has increased, and these products can be exchanged for cheap industrial products in Africa. The demand for new raw materials has led to fierce competition for African raw material producing areas.

The colonization of African continent by colonial countries began in the late19th century, with the gradual method initiated by France in Senegal as the starting point, that is, taking farms growing peanuts or oil palm as the forward base, using drugs to treat tropical diseases, using local aborigines to form hired troops and advancing to the hinterland along major rivers. This method is far more effective than the British coastal infiltration method, so it is imitated by other colonial countries. In the1870s, a large number of minerals, such as diamonds and gold, were discovered in South Africa, which stimulated other colonial countries to develop similar minerals in other parts of Africa. The land for competition is no longer limited to areas suitable for planting crops, but wasteland, swamp, desert and no man's land have all become the objects for competition. 1884- 1885 The Berlin Conference established the principle that "only actual occupation can prove the sovereignty of a colony". Britain, France, Portugal and other countries that have occupied the coastal areas of Africa quickly signed agreements and treaties with local chiefs to expand their influence inland. Germany, Belgium and Italy, emerging industrial powers, have also joined the fight for Africa.

From 1885 to 1900, European countries completed the division of Africa. Apart from Ethiopia and Liberia, two politically independent countries, traditional African kingdoms such as Ashanti, Dahomey, sokoto and Buganda, as well as countries such as Transvaal and Orange Free State established by European Africans, have all become colonies or protectorates of western countries. Egypt is nominally an independent country, but it is completely controlled by Britain.

In Asia, from 65438+ 1960, Russia accelerated its colonization and conquest of Transcaucasia, Central Asia, Siberia and the Far East, successively occupying Daruzi, Middle Luzi, Little Luzi, Shiva Khan, Bukhara Khan and Hao Han Khan, and infiltrating into Xinjiang, Outer Mongolia and Manchuria in China. By 1876, Russia had occupied170,000 square kilometers of land. France conquered Annan, Laos and Cambodia, Britain occupied Malay Peninsula and North Borneo, and controlled the Persian Gulf and the southern Arabian Peninsula. In Oceania, emerging Germany bought colonies such as Caroline Islands and Mariana Islands from Spain. In addition to directly conquering colonies, colonial countries also turned some economically backward countries into semi-colonies, such as China, Korea, Siam, Persia, Afghanistan and Ottoman Empire. And seized the customs, transportation, trade, road construction, mining, factory building, bank opening, military training and other rights and interests of these countries.

The Re-division of Colonies and Two World Wars

19 14 world colonies by the beginning of the 20th century, colonial countries and colonies had occupied 85% of the world's land area. The colonial distribution of countries is uneven. In addition to Britain and France, which are still powerful, Spain and Portugal, which have already declined, still control large colonies, while emerging countries such as the United States, Germany, Japan and Italy only occupy some "leftover land" with small area and poor resources. With the intensification of the means of fighting for colonies, major colonial countries were involved in a series of diplomatic and military conflicts from the end of 19 to the beginning of the 20th century, such as the first moroccan crises between Britain, France and Germany, the second Fashoda crisis between moroccan crises and Britain, the two Boer wars, the Spanish-American war, the Russo-Japanese war and the Italian-Turkish war.

From 1900 to 19 14, on the eve of the outbreak of World War I, various colonial countries formed extremely complicated conflicts of interest in order to compete for new colonies or protect existing colonies: Germany challenged Britain's world hegemony; Japan challenges Russia's hegemony in Asia; Russia challenges Britain's hegemony in Asia; Britain used France to contain Germany; Britain used Japan to contain Russia; France used Russia to contain Germany; Germany was surrounded by Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire in Russia ... In order to consolidate the existing colonies, two groups, the British-French Allied Forces and the German-Austrian-Italian Allied Forces, were formed successively.

World War I ended with the defeat of the Allies (Italy defected). As a punishment, Germany was deprived of all its overseas colonies, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, its territory was divided up by neighboring countries or formed into a new country, and the Ottoman Empire lost all its Arab territories.

With the modernization of economy, the adjustment of market, the development of urbanization, the progress of social culture and the upsurge of national liberation and anti-colonialism movement, the old colonial system has been greatly weakened by1920s, and colonial countries have realized that they cannot acquire new colonies by war. The colonies deprived by the defeated countries became the mandated areas of the League of Nations, and were managed by the victorious countries. Although it is still a colony in essence, the mandate clause of the League of Nations stipulates that the trusteeship must promote the welfare of the residents in the mandate area and establish an independent country in due course.

In the 1930' s, a new trend of thought of colonialism emerged-the fascist colonial view originated from geopolitical theory and the concept of "living space". After the Russo-Japanese War, Japan also began to put forward the slogan that Asian countries should resist the aggression of the white world under Japan's "leadership", and in the 1930 s, it evolved into the theory of "Greater East Asia * * * glory circle". Italy, Spain and other fascist countries also put forward the slogans of "fascist imperialism" and "Spain's Spain". In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler did not advocate that Germany should expand overseas, thinking that overseas expansion was not as good as European expansion, but he later approved the colonial requirements in the Nazi Party's "25-Point Program" and encouraged the activities of the German colonial movement after 1933.